Look, it’s the Serbian military! Oh wait, never mind, it’s just some Japanese guys dressed up like Serbs. The above picture, together with another picture of Japanese dressed up like Croats, have shocked Serbian/Croatian netizens, many of whom don’t seem to like the idea of some Japanese guys making a game out of the recent war in which so many of their countrymen fought and died.
Belgrade 2.0 has posted a story on the photos, asking the following questions:
What is the actual time needed for a war to become history? A decade, couple of years, one hundred years? What is the distance (time, cultural or geographical) needed so that we can “play war” without engaging too deeply into the actual context: who attacked first, were there any war crimes, how many people got killed, what happened after the war, etc.
Such questions don’t seem to be an issue to the military hobbyists engaging in the reenactment of the Yugoslav War, such as
this Japanese blogger, who writes about his experiences in a Bosnian battle “Survival Game”. According to the blogger, who has posted
quite a few pictures from the event, there were
UN,
Croatian, and
Serbian forces fighting in the battle, which took place at a site called “Area 51″ in Chiba Prefecture. Unlike the real Balkan War, much of the fighting revolved around each team’s flag, and there was plenty of time for participants to relax and take pictures.
I’m really not sure why a group of Japanese men would want to spend so much time and money reenacting their favorite Balkan battles, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the mystical power of obsessive
otakudom…
Japanese reenact the Yugoslav Wars [much to the surprise of internet users in the Balkans] : Japan Probe
Ay Caramba! Bin mal gespannt wann die Afghanistan- und Irakwochen sind...
